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23 January 2014

Chinook

My calendar seems to be on the wrong page. It says "January," but clearly that's not right; if it were January it would be 33 degrees below zero, not 33 above. Maybe it's March. Or maybe global warming/climate change is actually pretty amazing and wonderful. For Alaskans. Sorry to everyone shivering in the Lower 48, but we'd be perfectly happy to keep your weather instead of trading back. This is beautiful.

Little Bear and I have been loving the balmy weather these past few days. He loves running around in the snow, stomping his boots down the driveway, pushing his mittens into the snowbanks and shaking them at me with the biggest, goofiest, happiest grin imaginable spread across his face. Once we get through the hassle of getting into snow gear and heading out the door, it's impossible to lure him back inside!

Yesterday morning we were visiting my family and interrupting their school day, so the kids took Little Bear out for recess with them. He wasn't too sure about the whole sledding business at first, but as long as he wasn't the only one in the sled he seemed to enjoy it.

We really couldn't have asked for better weather for last night's prayer chain, either, and the impressive turnout was surely in part thanks to the warmth. We got there halfway through--I'm not at all unhappy that we share one vehicle, but scheduling can be frustrating--and Little Bear had so much fun running and crawling through the snow while I tried to keep ahold of the Y at the back of his snowpants. Can we just pretend that I was planning ahead and being well-prepared when I put them on him on top of his coat instead of under it? Thanks.

Late this morning there was a burst of freezing rain, but Matt was already at work when it happened, and by the time we ventured out to pick him up the roads were fine. I hear that people had trouble with them in the middle of the day, but putting another layer of gravel down seems to have taken care of it. (We will see if I'm this dismissive of it tomorrow if we get any more, when I have a midday meeting in town... praying for no more rain for the next three months!)

My only real quibble with the warm weather (please no rain tomorrow! Other than rain) is this:

That's the light above the front seat in the jeep, and a water droplet falling from the button. It seems that melting snow is seeping into the roof of the jeep somewhere, freezing, then thawing in the warm weather and running on down through the only opening it can find: the lights. Every time we go from reasonable temperatures to cold to super warm, the interior lights all start dripping. It's not bad, a mechanic friend tells us, just odd... but it's still unsettling, because water just doesn't belong around wiring.

But if that's the only thing I have to complain about? This warmth can definitely stick around. As long as it doesn't keep raining!